GOP’s ‘freedom to choose’

For the past several years, I have been puzzled by the steady drumbeat of Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act. I’ve been told that Obamacare is a “disaster” and must “be repealed immediately”; sooner if possible. But the only complaint I heard (and understood) about Obamacare was that it had to be paid for.

So I was thankful to read in the Herald Sun on June 28, Congressman Robert Pittenger’s statement that “Republican health care reform is based on freedom of choice,” and that when Obamacare is repealed and replaced, the number of citizens who will have coverage “will go down as some choose to purchase less coverage or even no coverage.”

I had not realized that the Republican Party was so in favor of choice, but it does make sense. I guess we can just point out to folks that, “If you choose to be poor, you had better not choose to be sick at the same time. It’s your right to make choices, and we defend those rights, but poor-and-sick is a bad combination. Still, whatever you choose, you can count on the support of Republican health care reform to celebrate your freedom to choose.”

They take delight in writing rules that create what they call wealth. But they have a deficient understanding of what that means.

What’s so hard about seeing that the health of the people is central to the wealth of the nation?

Richard W. McBride

Hillsborough

Run by rich folks

Our country and our planet seem to be headed to a black hole. Most folks are clueless about how difficult survival can be.

Americans seem to care more about sports and entertainment than about their fellow human and their planet. Compare the price of a sporting ticket or a dinner out to the cost of feeding a hungry child.

Several times I have had homeless people live with me for more than six months. I remembered this while sitting in the emergency room with my son. A homeless woman came in. She was disheveled, dirty, her stuff in bags, and coughing severely. This woman had no driver’s license and no insurance card; however, she was well cared for.

What will happen to people like her with the new GOP health plan? I don’t want my country run by rich folks – most inherited their wealth or gained it by taking advantage of others or like Trump = both.

As a white female, I would like to put every white male supremacist on a slave ship headed to China. Women, we could make this country great – providing all Americans with free health care and free education. Plus, we could feed our hungry and shelter our homeless.

For the sake of your children, please get involved and replace greed and power with sharing and caring. Senior Americans need to be on Medicare and Social Security, especially our congressional folks. I feel deep sorrow for our future, if you don’t get involved.

P. Diane Chambers

Durham

Eliminating global poverty?

Recently, there has been much talk about global climate change and how President Trump ended America’s participation in the Paris Climate Accord. While I do not dispute that climate change is a large problem, what I am not hearing people discuss is global poverty. Yes, the climate is important, but so are people.

The United States is the most powerful nation on earth and it should be preventing 25,000 children from dying each day because it can. I am a strong believer in helping others whenever possible, which is why I am working with The Borgen Project. The Borgen Project is an innovative, national campaign that is working to make global poverty a focus of U.S. foreign policy. The Borgen Project contacts members of Congress in order to get them to support poverty-reduction bills.

It is my belief that many people do not donate to organizations such as The Borgen Project because they do not think that their small contribution is helping. From 1990 to 2015, the number of people living in extreme poverty has diminished from 1.9 billion to 836 million. With your support, The Borgen Project will be able to eliminate global poverty.

Sabrina Cera

Raleigh

A Satanic abomination

I am a wealthy man, who may benefit from the tax cuts proposed as part of Obamacare repeal. But I assert it is a treasonous, Satanic abomination that those benefits should be gained by throwing millions of my fellow citizens off insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, abandoned to bankruptcy and death. Such gains would be blood money, as toxic as Judas’ thirty pieces of silver.

Every man, woman and child in this country, no matter their age, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, education, class and station, should have unhindered access to the same quality of medical care I can afford, regardless of what they can or cannot pay. Health care should be, and IS, a human right, and a prime duty of any nation that wants to call itself civilized, or Christian.

That’s what I pay taxes for – along with other services that benefit the public good: parks and libraries; public schools that all may attend FREE, from day care through college; police and fire departments, first responders, and public transit. It may be that God has blessed me with this (unearned, inherited) wealth for just that purpose.

Martin K. Smith

Durham

Call it Trumpcare

If President Obama’s relation to the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare is the same as Mr. Trump’s relation is to the Republicans’ Healthcare Plan of 2017, then the Republican’s Healthcare Plan should be called Trumpcare.

William T. Fletcher

Durham

The moral argument

A recent academic study put the total cost of incarceration in the U.S. at over $1 trillion a year. The U.S. has more people locked up than any other civilized nation.

When they get out, they are much more likely to commit another crime than someone with no record. Of course, they now face more possible crimes than the average citizen. Until the Supreme Court recently reversed this, a sex offender could be charged with having an account on Facebook without being sent to prison.

Many states can put people back in prison for having a gun in their possession or having one in the house they live in. They can be sent to prison not for doing anything wrong but for having a gun in their possession. Many with a prison record cannot find work because employers can choose not to hire them because of that record. Some apartments can refuse to rent to them. They may have to live far away from a school if they have a sex offense of any kind. They have to register and keep the police informed as to where they live.

Most child sex offenders are never prosecuted. The family will not come forward. Women in college who claim they have been sexually attacked or drugged will often refuse to have her sexual history run through the mud in a trial.

A moral argument carries no weight in “Christian America.” Maybe a financial argument will win the day.

Larry Bumgardner

Durham

The most diverse

In the movie “Dances With Wolves,” Colonel Dunbar requested to see the frontier before it was gone. I would like to take this moment to recognize two of the most truly diverse people groups in the world before they are gone.

Peoples with unique talents, abilities which set them distinctly apart from any national, cultural, or tribal community. The group you ask?...

Men and Women.

Mike Whittingham

Roxboro

Feedback

Please send up to 300 words to letters@heraldsun. All submissions, online comments and posts on editor Mark Schultz’s Facebook page may be edited for space and clarity.